dies at idle

[thozf]

I have an 89 accord. Yesterday when I was coming down the street to my house the engine died. I started it right back up and as soon as I took my foot off the gas it died again. It will start and run fine as long as you are pushing on the gas pedal. But let off and it dies. Always starts right back up. Any help is appreciatied.

[marchingbuff]

I had the same problem when i used to drive a Montero. Have a mechanic check your idle motor. That could be dead. As far as cost, it cost me $600. Good luck

[Tom_91_LX]

Is it carbureted (DX/LX) or injected (LX-i)?

If it's carbureted, there's a high likelihood that the carb system is the source of your problem, and here's some advice...see if there's a shop in your area with techs who have been in the business long enough to have a lot of experience with carbs, especially Honda carbs. They were amazingly complicated systems that ran almost as well as fuel injection, but they have no self-diagnostic capability and things can get really jacked up if someone doesn't know what they are doing.

If it's injected, you can be a lot less picky about who repairs it because they'll only need to look at a handful of possible trouble spots, versus about 200.

Tom

[thozf]

It is carburated (LX) and I figured that was it. I read in another post that they tend to get crap stuck in the jets between the tank and the bowl and that I should spray like 2 cans of carb cleaner into the vent with the engine running. Also I need to replace both filters to make sure they aren't part of the problem. Just waiting until there was less gas in the tank before I started pulling the filters.
Thanks for the help.

Tom

[scottdude]

Too late, You can spray that carb and dump gallons of fuel treatment in but your Idle jet is clogged. And until you pull the cover and clean the jet your stuck. You got a 5% chance of the fuel treatment actually working. Sorry have done several of those and the trick is not getting the vacuum lines messed up and resetting the mixture. Good Luck

[NellyB]

It might just be your distributor....cause i had the same type problem

[thozf]

Turns out the wire from the TPS to the ECU had broken. As long as I was pushing on the gas the carb did the only thing it knew how to do, dump gas into the engine, which would keep the car running(I got sh!tty fuel mileage). Once I let off the gas the ECU would get stupid because it didn't have the proper data from the TPS and cut the fuel.
I separated the connector, replaced the female spade connector inside the plastic piece and spliced a longer piece of wire(I think the original was very short and after 15 years caused the wire to break right out of the plastic connector.) that I attatched to the broken one. All is good. Thanks for all the replies.